That’s based on the Commerce Department’s Quarterly Estimates for Selected Service Industries report for the first quarter, released Wednesday. It showed that revenue in the U.S. health-care and social-assistance sector fell 2% in the first quarter from the fourth quarter of 2013, not adjusted for seasonal variations or price changes. Hospital revenue fell a seasonally adjusted 1.3% from the prior quarter.

The Commerce Department’s last GDP report, though, said inflation-adjusted spending on health-care services surged to a seasonally adjusted annual level of $1.848 trillion in the first quarter from $1.808 trillion in the fourth quarter of 2013. That estimate for spending on health care boosted overall GDP growth by 1.01 percentage point, keeping the 1% contraction from being even worse.

J.P. Morgan Chase economist Daniel Silver and Pierpont Securities economist Stephen Stanley both cautioned that it’s not clear exactly how the Commerce Department will adjust GDP to account for the new health-care services data.

But they and other analysts downgraded their estimates for the first quarter based on the new survey, as well as other recently released data. Mr. Silver predicted GDP declined at a 1.6% pace in the first three months of the year. Mr. Stanley predicted contraction at a 2% pace. Macroeconomic Advisers also estimated GDP shrank at a 2% pace.

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